


going once, going twice...

by spookyfoot



Series: caught a glimpse of your reflection [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Charity Auctions, M/M, Post Season 07, back at it again with another outsider pov fic, background allurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 08:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15968762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot
Summary: The Garrison may have survived an alien occupation, but it never prepared them for this.“Oh my god,” Rizavi says, “someone’s going to live their dream of being the cream filling in a Shiro and Keith sandwich.”Matt Holt—miraculously alive, pony-tailed, asshole—turns to the slices of bread in question, “why can’t you two just negotiate your threesomes over a bottle of wine like everyone else?”The Galaxy Garrison hosts a charity auction.





	going once, going twice...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rinsled05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinsled05/gifts).



> not beta read. this was an exercise in not nitpicking every sentence i write because i'd like to finish the ten other voltron wips i have. also a celebration of having a working laptop again, that too. akiko this is for you <3

_I really don’t get paid enough for this_ , Iverson thinks as he dons his greys and the damn beret that doesn’t serve any purpose other than pomp and circumstance. He likes pomp and circumstance and regulation. He hates that goddamn beret.

While they’re in a sort of stasis, a temporary period of peace following the battle against Sendak that doesn’t mean it’s without battles of its own. Case in point: tonight.

Iverson straightens his jacket one last time before staring down his own fate, navigating the long, freshly decorated hallways of the Garrison.

Officially, tonight is to boost morale: to present a united front with their new intergalactic allies; to remind people to live in spite of all the death they’ve seen.

Unofficially it’s a chance for Earth’s protectors to get dead-ass drunk.

While Iverson can get on board with two those, he’s not particularly enthused about the spectacle of the whole thing. Privately, he thinks it’s the product of one mustachioed Altean watching too many b-rated teen movies and dreaming up a hair brained scheme that, for some reason, the Voltron Coalition was quick to rally behind.

Suspiciously quick.

Coran had offered to help co-host; pr _esent a united front between Earth and the universe_ he'd said. Iverson had agreed if only because it might make faking sick easier. He’s all for raising morale, he'd just rather watch from the sidelines than from the center of the circus. 

He tries a cough, hopeful.

It's not very effective. 

A charity auction. A goddamn charity auction.

It's for a good cause, to help the families of the survivors rebuild their lives from the rubble.

It’s also revealed some universal truths: young adult hormones are an intergalactic constant.

//

The stage lights, hot and bright, are not quite enough to blind him or make him forget what his current circumstances. The one time someone does their job correctly and he’s the one paying for it.  Where was this attention to detail during the pre-occupation production of _King Lear_? Despite Ahn’s impassioned performance no one had really been able to see the nuances and that was a whole six months of rehearsals, wasted. He’d sworn never to supervise the drama club again.

He’s sworn a lot of things.

If he’d been able to keep half of them he wouldn’t be finding himself up on the stage here today.

There are familiar faces clustered around the tables near the footlights and Iverson smiles to himself, looking over the list of items available to bid on.

Good. They’ll have to suffer with him.

The list in his hands, a thick sheaf of papers that has to be more than thirty pages, contains a multitude of things, many that he never knew existed. Unfortunately there’s one item that’s conspicuously missing: his dignity.

His eyes land on one specific item on the list. He winces. There’s not enough good whiskey in the world. There’s not enough whiskey in the world _period_.

He likes Kogane and Shirogane well enough; Shirogane’s a competent officer and a good man; Kogane's grown into himself—the years in space had, ironically, made Kogane more grounded. But—auctioning off an evening with the two of them...

Well. It’s only fitting that this whole thing should take the shape of his living nightmare. Too bad there’s no one to slap him awake.

Iverson does not care if the two of them are in a relationship. They’re both more than competent officers. They do their job well. If he’s seen Shirogane’s hand resting on Kogane’s thigh during a strategy meeting well, he’ll feign board room blindness with the sort of tact this newer generation seems to have forgotten. Shirogane and Kogane haven’t confirmed or denied their relationship to anyone else at the Garrison.

That doesn’t matter. Iverson knows they’re dating.

_Everyone already knows they're dating._

He’d never seek out the information on his own but if they think they’re being subtle then he’s concerned for any future espionage missions. Because they’re incredibly obvious about it. Iverson has no interest in their personal business, but the rest of the Garrison has every infinitesimal atom of interest in making sure he knew—knows. Is constantly aware of.

The lights buzz. The crowd cheers. Coran twirls his mustache.

It’s showtime.

God help him.

//

The evening spirals in a mix of intergalactic currency and universal impulses.

“Item 547, a collection of t-shirts offered up by Veronica McClain on behalf of her brother, Lance McClain,” Iverson intones, reading off the stack of pages in his hand. God there are still so many more to go. 

“Oh it looks like we have our first bid,” Coran says, bright and cheery, waving his arm with a little flourish. Iverson is positive no one has any idea what that gesture actually means. Coran stares out at the audience and squints into the lights, “Lance, you can’t bid on your own lot! All of the paladins had to put something up for auction! This was yours!”

And because the lights are nowhere near bright enough, Iverson has to watch McClain turn towards his sister with a infuriated pout, far less intimidating than a Paladin of Voltron should be by any right, but about as intimidating as Iverson’s always expected McClain would be when stretched to his limits. McClains expression reminds him of a misshapen cake. 

“I didn’t agree to this!” he protests.

Veronica, objectively the better McClain sibling, folds her arms over her chest “I’m doing this for you, Lance! You asked me to help you figure out what to put up for auction and I figured it out, no participation required.”

“Veronica!”

“They should have been burned a long time ago; this is a much kinder fate.”

“For _who?”_

 _“_ For _everyone.”_

“Not for me! I'm part of everyone!”

“Trust me, I’m doing Allura—and therefore _you—_ a huge favor.”

Iverson’s seen the shirts. She’s not wrong. There’s some half hearted bidding but it dies down pretty quickly and, surprising no one, the lot ends up going to Princess Allura herself, a flush staining her cheeks.

Veronica looks on, half proud half disgusted. Iverson can relate.

“Wow. You two really are perfect for one another.”

//

“Item 666, an evening out with the Captain of the Atlas and the Black Paladin of Voltron.”

Dead silence until some poor soul drops a fork and breaks the calm, setting off a swarm of murmurs. Iverson remembers the stories from Sunday school, the ones about the ten plagues. Locusts, was one of them, he recalls, vaguely. That’s what the whispers remind him of. Like a plague, descending upon the room, swallowing it whole in anticipation.

The Garrison may have survived an alien occupation, but it never prepared them for this.

“Oh my god,” Rizavi says, “someone’s going to live their dream of being the cream filling in a Shiro and Keith sandwich.”

Matt Holt—miraculously alive, pony-tailed, asshole—turns to the slices of bread in question, “why can’t you two just negotiate your threesomes over a bottle of wine like everyone else?”

He says this as he swills the wine in his glass. He probably thinks that it makes him look sophisticated, but Iverson’s seen him when he nearly pissed himself after his first sim run and this, similarly, is not a good look.

Kogan turns to Shirogane, and says, a little too loudly, voice cracking on the upswing, “Shiro?”

Shirogane flushes to the roots of his hair but shrugs, “I knew you wouldn’t want to spend the day with someone alone—” which means Shirogane also didn’t want to spend the day alone—"and it’s for a good cause.”

That last part, at least, is true.

“Technically they can’t be sold as metaphorical sandwich bread since neither of them is licensed for sex work,” Leifsdottir says. And then, horrifyingly, continues, “although they could be certified and we just don’t know. That should have been part of the listing.”

Leifsdottir’s always been thorough—sometimes ruthlessly so. Sometimes is now. 

"Well—” Matt Holt says.

“Since this is a two for one, potentially with some after hours benefits Let’s set the starting bid at 5,000 GAC!” Coran calls out, unexpectedly merciful.  ” Kogane buries his head in Shirogane’s chest. Shirogane doesn’t look as upset about the proceedings as he should. Most likely he’s distracted.

Iverson fights to contain the twitch in his good eye. They’re close to the end of the list—god he hopes they’re actually close to the end of the list and that’s not just a lie that he’s been telling himself to make it through this hell—but this is it. He’s arrived and the flames are licking at his heels.

If there’s a heaven, if there’s some sort of higher power, this is the moment he knows for sure that they’ve abandoned him to watch his life turn into a poorly planned music festival while they watch with popcorn.

It’s then that Iverson realizes that the room’s temporary silence was simply the calm before the storm. A flurry of paddles follows. Griffin actually gets up on his chair to raise his paddle. The list of things that Iverson never needed to know about the people under his command just keeps growing longer, tangled underfoot and tripping him every step of the way.

Coran just looks on the impending chaos with unholy glee. Iverson should have expected as much. He knows better by now.

“5000 GAC!” a deep voice calls from the back of the room. Iverson can’t quite make out who it is but something deep within him shivers.

“Do I hear 5,500?” A pause, then, “number forty three!”

“5,500 GAC,” and yeah, that’s definitely Griffin’s voice.

“Do I hear 6,000 GAC?”

“6,000 GAC,” this, from one Nadia Rizavi who hollers out the number like a challenge, a devlish smile stretched across her face.

“Do I hear 7,000?” Coran says. Each time the bid gets higher he adds a new and more ostentatious flourish to his announcement. Iverson still isn’t sure why his own presence was so necessary. If they needed a window dressing they could have asked any one of the other senior officers.

Throughout the whole ordeal, Kogane inches further and further into Shirogane’s lap, as though proximity will protect him from the horror that they’re all witnessing. But he’s chosen the wrong protector--the man he’s clinging to is directly responsible for his current distress.

Coran notices, which is a mistake, because he mutters, ‘we always hurt the ones we love the most,” before raising his voice again. “Enjoy an intimate evening with the couple who act like they invented intimacy!”

“How did people even find out that we’re ma—dating. That we’re dating,” Kogane says, and Iverson sees the death of a million future stealth missions flash before his eyes.They might as well have used the lions to skywrite their relationship status.

He also knows that Kogane was going to say something other than dating but it’s an alternative that’s so horrifying to consider—primarily due to the fact it would shatter any sort of equilibrium that the Garrison’s managed to achieve—that he promptly ignores that it ever happened.

The marketplace on earth are getting more and more varied every day. There must be some friendly, merciful alien race that’s perfected technology that allows for selective, intentional amnesia and they must have made it to earth by now. At this point, Iverson refuses to consider any other alternative.

“Are you serious?” Garrett says. Iverson’s always liked him. He’s always been the most sensible and cautious of his class. _Garrett can stay,_ Iverson decides. Coran passes him something that tastes like the tears of a thousand gym socks. He takes a big swig.

He’s completely unashamed to admit that he’s lost track of where they are in the auction—Coran seems happy to assume responsibility for the proceedings, and Iverson’s aware that he’s just there for show. Really, they would have done better to ask Shirogane to co-host but either Shirogane had decline or they’d wanted Iverson on the stage to add a much needed but likely insufficient air of gravitas. Or both.

“7,000 GAC!” says Matt Holt because judging by the looks on Shirogane and Kogane’s faces, he enjoys actively courting death.

Kogane unfurls himself from Shirogane’s lap, eyes flashing, jaw clenched. “I’m leaving.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Shirogane says, doing that thing where he makes Kogane’s given name sound like a term of endearment that should only be spoken behind closed doors. In candlelight. 

Iverson didn’t ask for this. Iverson specifically asked for anything _but_ this.

“I told you that you could handle the auction but I didn’t sign up for this,” Kogane says, swaying a little. Because Kogane and Shirogane are adding a show to the dinner that came with the auction ticket.

“Keith,” Shirogane says in _that tone_ , again, “it’s for a good cause.”

“Really, right in front of my nunvile?” McClain says.

“Do I hear 8,000 GAC?” Coran says, gesturing to the couple in question. Shirogane has his hand on Kogane’s shoulder, thumb moving in small circles. Now that Kogane’s got a scar to mirror Shirogane's—and they’ve stayed tight lipped about the story behind that one—Iverson’s wondered more than once if they’d ever need wedding rings when they have those to constantly remind everyone that they’re a matched set.

“8,000 GAC!” Kogane says, breaking out of Shirogane’s hold. He sways a bit on his feet as he stands which no one else seems to recognize as a terrible omen.

“We have 8,000 GAC! And in a surprising turn of events, one of the persons up for auction is bidding on themselves!” Coran says.

“Keith you can’t bid on yourself,” Shirogane says, but it falls flat when his mouth curls in a smile that’s more fond than frustrated.

Kogane folds his arms over his chest, “Well I’m bidding on you, not me. I just happen to be part of the package.”

On the stage Coran twirls his mustache thoughtfully. “It’s unusual but not against the rules. As long as Keith has the money to back up his bid, it still goes to charity.”

“See?” Kogane says, planting a finger in the center of Shirogane’s chest, “I’m gonna win you, and we’re gonna race and then we’ll fu—”

“The leader of Voltron, everyone!” Matt Holt says, grinning like a cat that’s got the canary _and_ the cream. They all know where that sentence was headed. 

“Do I hear 9,000 GAC?”

Three arms go up. They’re all attached to the same body. “9,000 GAC,” says Slav. Iverson’s been avoiding the Research and Development department since he landed on the planet, and he stands by that decision.

All the blood drains from Shirogane’s face.

“Do I hear 10,000 GAC?”

“10,000 GAC!” Slav calls again.The vein in Shirogane’s temple is visible from the stage.

"It's for a good cause, Shiro," Iverson hears Kogane say. 

" _Keith."_

“Oh, we’ve got a high roller!" Coran says. "Do I hear 11,000—”

“11,000 GAC!” Slav says before Coran can even finish his sentence.

“You don’t have to outbid yours—you know what nevermind. Do we have 12,000—”

Shirogane wraps his fingers around Kogane’s wrist and raises his arm “12,000 GAC.”

“Do I hear 13,000?” Coran calls out.

The room is full of hushed murmurs, Iverson can hear the MFE pilots discussing pooling their money—”Griffin’s birthday’s coming up,” Leifsdottir says, matter of fact, which is somehow worse. Iverson could have lived his entire life without knowing that about Griffin. He could have lived his entire life without this entire evening. 

A tall, imposing lavender alien with a scar slashed across his left eye, arms folded across his chest raises his paddle in a manner that’s decisive but unhurried. “20,000 GAC,” he says.

A hush falls over the room.

“We have a bid way above asking price for 20,000 GAC!” Coran cries.

Shirogane gets a look at the bidder and, unbelievably, flinches. Now that Iverson gets a better look he realizes he’s seen this alien before—Kolivan. Leader of the Blade of Marmora and Keith’s--oh. A few more puzzle pieces fall into place but Iverson’s wishing they’d fallen between the couch cushions instead. The tall alien woman standing beside him, who Iverson belatedly recognizes as Keith’s mother, looks more amused than anything. 

“15,000 GAC going once,” Iverson looks around the room, glaring at any one he thinks might raise their hands. Please for the love of all that’s unholy, let this be over.

“Going once, going twice, going three times, and sold to Kolivan.”

Kogane flushed and biting his lip turns to hide his face against Shirogane’s neck.

“Oh, no,” Shirogane says.

The rest of the auction passes by with all the gravitas of a balloon forfeiting the last of its air. Like a low whistle of disappointment—the evening’s already hit its climax.

There’s some mild excitement over one (1) day getting to take a trip to any place of your choosing, transported by the Yellow Lion, but other than that it’s a lot of gift baskets full of esoteric cakes and nuts; most of the ingredients are unrecognizable but the sentiment is the same. One item includes a technological upgrade of choice courtesy of the Holts but that seems like a monkey's paw scenario if Iverson's ever seen one.

As it turns out, the auction ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Shirogane, bloodless and terrified stand rooted to the spot as Kolivan approaches, stalking through the room. The crowd parts before him without a word, all of them moving on cue as though he’d issued a command.

If Iverson were twenty years younger he’d want to be him when he grew up. But based on what he knows of Galra lifespans, any de-aging is unnecessary---he wants to be Kolivan right now.

“We should have let Slav win,” Kogane says. It’s unclear how much nunvil he’s actually had but it’s enough for him to have lost control over the volume of his voice

Shirogane shivers and winds his arms around Kogane’s waist. “Don’t ever say that again. I don’t want to live in that reality.”

“Shiro, Keith,” Kolivan says, “I will not require your presence for this. You’re free to do as you wish. I’d like to have a short talk with Shiro though.” And he pulls Shirogane to one side. Their voices are too low to make out the entirety of their conversation but Iverson sees the way Shirogane goes pale and deadly serious and --

“Did Kolivan seriously just spend 20,000 GAC to give Shiro a shovel talk?” McClain says, voice full of awe and disbelief.

“The man’s got style,” Matt Holt says, with a low, approving whistle.

It's the first sensible thing anyone's said all evening. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you want to chat and/or see pictures of my cats i'm on [the tumblr](http://spookyfoot.tumblr.com) and [ the twitter](http://twitter.com/spooky_foot) or in the comments. that works too. 
> 
> never forget that pidge called voltron "the voltron" in the first episode.


End file.
